Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings,' Staged by Matthew Warchus in Toronto

TORONTO - AN hour or so into what feels like eons of stage time, one wise, scared little hobbit manages to express the feelings of multitudes. "This place is too dim and tree-ish for me," mutters a round-ish, twee-ish creature named Pippin, groping through a shadowy forest in the second act of the very expensive, largely incomprehensible musical version of "The Lord of the Rings," which opened Thursday at the Princess of Wales Theater here.

You speak not the half of it, O cherub-cheeked lad of Middle Earth. The production in which you exist so perilously is indeed a murky, labyrinthine wood from which no one emerges with head unmuddled, eyes unblurred or eardrums unrattled. Everyone and everything winds up lost in this $25 million adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's cult-inspiring trilogy of fantasy novels. That includes plot, character and the patience of most ordinary theatergoers.

Presumably, there is a contingent out there that will regard this curiously homespun-feeling behemoth as a sort of sacred ritual. Indeed, perhaps the sanest approach to this production, adapted from Tolkien's books by an international team of artists led by the British director Matthew Warchus, is to look upon it as an arcane religious pageant that can be fully appreciated only by the initiated. That would be those familiar enough with the source material (preferably to the point of being fluent in Elvish) to understand the totemic significance of the amorphous shapes that pass through an eternal, vision-taxing twilight, murmuring dialogue that, when intelligible, brings to mind vintage "Prince Valiant" comic strips.

Let me hasten to add that I was not a Tolkien virgin when I walked into the Princess of Wales Theater. I read the "Ring" trilogy (and its delightful predecessor, "The Hobbit") at least twice when I was a child. And I sat as happily as a little boy at a PlayStation through the more than nine hours of Peter Jackson's three-part movie version. Had I not, I would not have begun to have made sense of many of this production's aspiring edge-of-the-seat moments, including the final climax in which the pesky ring that causes so much trouble is destroyed. (Please don't write to say I've spoiled the show for you; believe me, I'm doing you a favor.)

The woman who accompanied me to the show had no prior acquaintance with the world of Tolkien, and she gave up on trying to make sense of the story early in the first of the show's three acts. As a fashion editor, she was able to derive some pleasure from discovering parallels between the costumes and current style trends. If you lack such resources to draw upon, you may find this "Lord of the Rings" is less like a spectacular fashion show than a seriously long (more than three and a half hours) drill team competition for high schools devoted to the nurturing of geeks, goths and hippies manqué who are really annoyed that they were born too late for Woodstock.

In following the adventures of the hobbit Frodo Baggins (James Loye) in his quest to save the ancient world of Middle Earth from the forces of darkness, this "Lord of the Rings" makes extensive use of a 40-ton stage (featuring 17 elevators) that revolves and rises, more than 500 often cumbersome costumes (Rob Howell designed them and the sets) and vast projected images that bring to mind much-magnified biology class slides. The program credits give prominent place to moving-image direction (the Gray Circle), illusions and magic effects (Paul Kieve), special-effects design (Gregory Meeh) and a "Tolkien creative consultant" (Laurie Battle).

Yet for all the technology, the show's look is often reminiscent of an arts and crafts fair. Its dominant images include a giant, twiggish wreath that is occasionally lowered to frame exposition sequences (there are lots of those); some striking, if ambiguous, Julie Taymor-ish puppetlike assemblages; sky-scraping stilt walkers; levitating fairies; and myriad long poles carried by cast members, meant to signify everything from trees (natch) to processional majesty.

The show's mantra could be, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." A lot of the book and lyrics (by Shaun McKenna and Mr. Warchus) are sacrificed to the distortions of electronic amplification and booming background music. The dialogue that can be heard often sounds as if it comes from a Hollywood medieval sword-banger of 50 or 60 years ago. ("How often we sang together before you left my father's house." Or: "You are wise to ask, Frodo son of Drogo." Or: "Then there is a lady in the golden wood, as old tales tell.")

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As for the songs -- well, do not be so foolish, mortals, as to think they are mere show tunes. Created by the polyglot team of A. R. Rahman (of "Bombay Dreams" and Bollywood), Varttina (a Finnish folk group) and Christopher Nightingale, the musical numbers are often solemn, incantatory affairs, suggesting Enya at an ashram. Many of them are performed at least partly in Elvish. (If you think that means a lisping Presley imitator, this is definitely not the show for you.) Others recall the folky parody tunes from the spoof documentary "A Mighty Wind."

The choreography is by Peter Darling, whose work for the London hit "Billy Elliot: The Musical" is breathtaking, but who here seems stymied by the sheer size of his ensemble. There is a protracted Morris dance-style sequence in a quaint tavern, in which the cast members refreshingly hoist benches instead of the usual poles, and much semaphoric gesturing and slow-motion writhing for the fight sequences. Since Paul Pyant's lighting tends to the crepuscular, it is not always possible to tell who is fighting whom.

Nor is it easy for the cast members to register emotions legibly amid the gloaming. The show's best-known actor is Brent Carver (a Tony winner for "Kiss of the Spiderwoman"), whose hole-pitted line readings as the magisterial wizard Gandalf inappropriately suggest that the old sage is suffering from a Hamlet-like crisis of resolution. Evan Buliung is better cast as the action-figure hunk Strider (a k a Aragorn), and the audience clearly warms to the scenery chewing of Michael Therriault as the whiny, sneaky Gollum, who here looks like an unraveling mummy and sounds like Renfield, Dracula's old sidekick. Mr. Loye does what he can as Frodo, as does Peter Howe as his loyal companion, Sam, but they are no match for the shadows that swamp the stage.

You may be interested to know that, according to a news release, the dress worn by the beauteous Galadriel (Rebecca Jackson Mendoza, who sings of Elvish good will in the style of Celine Dion) has more than 1,800 hand-sewn beads. (The release does not stipulate whether nuns were the seamstresses or if they lost their vision to the work.)

But the show's must-have fashion items are clearly the springing shoes worn by some of the evil Orcs (at least I think that's what they were), who look like a squadron of vengeful houseplants trained in the martial arts. The shoes allow their wearers to leap high into the air merely by flexing their knees. This action provides some of the scarce occasions when "The Lord of the Rings" feels other than Middle Earth-bound.